The hear and now … Fi Glover will present The Listening Project for BBC Radio 4. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

BBCRadio 4 will attempt to take an aural snapshot of the nation by recording thousands of people's conversations from across the UK.

But there is nothing illegal about this eavesdropping – listeners are being invited to share those "rare conversations that really matter" to build a "unique picture of our lives today and preserve it for future generations".

Radio 4 controller Gwyneth Williams said: "We want to bring a new kind of conversation onto Radio 4, made possible by the unique nature of radio, its intimacy and entanglement in the lives of audiences.

"I'd like to invite listeners to help us catch, broadcast and archive for the nation those rare exchanges that really matter; those conversations that can change the course of a life; that are utterly memorable; that we have all had and never forget."

Listeners will be able to submit their conversation through the Listening Project website which will launch on 19 March.

Glover said: "The Listening Project has an element of magic to it.

"Radio provides the perfect place for the intimacy of a profound conversation between two people – but the joy of this prospect is that it then allows all of us to eavesdrop on that conversation, and I defy anyone not to learn more about our shared human experience through doing so.

"The Listening Project is awesome in the scale of its ambition but humbling in the intimacy of each conversation – I am thrilled to be a part of it."

Selected conversations will be broadcast in edited three-minute versions on Radio 4 before various news bulletins on Fridays, beginning on 30 March, with a 15-minute omnibus edition on Sundays.

The Listening Project will gather pace with five 15-minute specials which will air Monday to Friday, beginning on 25 June.

What people speak about will be left up to them, according to the BBC. It could be a moment of "joy, sadness, or reflection … creating the space for people to have that conversation they always meant to have".

The British Library will create a permanent archive for the nation of the majority of the conversations.

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